HTC One mini hands-on and impressions

After all the rumors and leaks today we’ve managed to officially learn all the details about the HTC One mini, as well as get our hands all over the 4.3-inch smartphone. HTC isn’t relying on just the larger One to do all the heavy lifting this year, as we now have a smaller sibling, and are still hopeful for the One Max as well. However, today we’ll be focusing on the slimmed down and smaller version of their flagship. The HTC One mini.

We know almost everything about the new smartphone already, but now it’s official and we’ve got loads of picture below for those interested. Has the HTC One mini lost some of that charm we loved about the original during its downsizing, or will it still be one of the best devices in its size segment? Read on to find out.

As you all know, we loved the HTC One, so we were eager to get our hands on the new mini. And to our surprise, almost all of the rumors were true. The downsized 4.3-inch display is now 720p instead of 1080, but we still have the beautiful design, front facing speakers with beats audio, the Ultrapixel camera, Zoe photography, and a few other things. Without taking a closer look they are nearly identical, but below we’ll point out the few differences, and the features that are missing.

The One mini comes in at 132 x 63.2 x 9.25 mm and 122g, so it’s just slightly smaller than the original, and not quite as heavy. The biggest difference for us was the newly added plastic ring around the device. It was molded between the aluminum on the original, but now wraps around the sides and onto the front fascia here with the mini. It might protect that aluminum from scratches and dings, but takes away a little bit of that premium feel we thoroughly loved about the One.

Aside from having nearly the exact same look, lets talk about the hardware changes, because there’s more than a few. For one the mini watered-down smartphone only rocks a 1.4 GHz dual-core Snapdragon 400 processor and 1GB of RAM (vs quad and 2GB) and again we have 16GB of storage and no micro-SD for adding more. The snapdragon should be plenty quick, and we’re not too worried. However, it also has no OIS on the Ultrapixel camera, no NFC, and no IR blaster built into the power button. Oh, and the battery is only 1,800 mAh here too. We’ll see how that holds up in our review.

We have 4G LTE (with hints of US LTE in the spec sheet) HSPA, WiFi radios as usual, Bluetooth 4.0 and aptX support, and they managed to keep the Beats Audio and boomsound speakers, even though we lost the few things mentioned above. I guess the kept the important “keyword” features, which is fine. Then of course everything else is like the original. We’re running Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean out of the box, Zoe works wonderfully, Sense UI 5 is smooth and stable, and the low-light performance of the Ultrapixel camera works well, even without image stabilization. Here’s a quick video rundown:

While we’re looking at the international version here, HTC confirmed the device will roll out globally starting in August. There’s no exact date, or carrier announcements yet, but recent leaks suggest AT&T in the US and possible a few more. As you saw from the pictures the device is wonderful. HTC’s done a great job, even if we aren’t the biggest fans of the plastic. Some might find it more comfortable to hold however, so it’s a toss up. Overall this is everything we loved about the One, only a bit on the mini side, and a little watered down.

Above we have a few samples of their HTC One mini car kit, a new case that doubles as a stand, and just for kicks some comparisons next to that small iPhone 5 can be found below in the full gallery. We’ll be sure and update the minute we learn more, so stay tuned.